fallout from a restless mind

#tirednewsflash: no news is good news

hello. and our top story today: __________

the BBC Director Major-General Mark Thompson thinks that, given the currants economic, you, the public, will have little to less sympathy for those BBC employees who plan to take part in the 48 hour NUJ strikeout today and tomorrow, which will leave the BBC news provision across both TV and radio in a precariously positioned place.

when we put that question to former NUJ spokesman Andrew St Fleetst, earlier, he has this to say: “Well he would say that wouldn’t he, Thompson?”

the initialled reports were that several BBC News faces/voices like Fiona Bruise, Kirsty Walk and Knicky Campbell would all partache in The Event by simply not turning up. “Luckily”, claimed a sauce from within the BBC’s TV news production team, “part of it is scheduled for a Saturday and people are used to the good ones being off at the weekend and it being the troll-like ones that usually only do the BBC News Channel, so we think most people won’t notice. The radio team has it easy – they’re just getting in (Jon) Culshaw to do all (the voices) for both (days).”

however, we now understand that will not be the case, and that all BBC News staff will be instead performing what is known in the trade as a no-newser. as action organiser, watercolourist and former anchor Nicholas Witchell explained to non-BBC reporters this morning, “they will all go in and it will be like normal, but they’ll say that there’s no news and will be mostly silent. it’s like a vigil. and, legally, all the presenters will have to be paid.”

it is of course not the first time BBC News staff have pulled a no-newser over pay/pension restructuring – just incase you were out of town the last time, here is some footage of 2008’s infamous ‘no news tuesday’.

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well, given that we ourselves are entrenched in ongoing and sadly quite violent contract negotiations here at RQT (hence no #showertunes this weekend), we’re fully supporting all those who choose to join the strike, and roundly booing those who choose to use the opportunity to forward their careers by gleefully agreeing to swap the stacking chairs of South Yorkshire Tonight for the ‘full gas-action’ rotating thrones of the main BBC News desk.

this is ...

a place designed to house thought excesses. if my mind is archimedes' bath, the water my general thoughts and archimedes himself the kind of clever thoughts i'm supposed to put in my work, then what you will find here is what escapes over the brim as the skinny boffin lowers himself into the tub. it exists, further indulging the analogy, on the basis that it might be necessary to collect and measure the runoff in order to know the volume of the person.